Thursday morning we were at the 9/11 Memorial early, to take the first guided tour of the day. I have been to the Memorial several times, but never taken this tour, and it was so meaningful. I had seen this wall every time, of course, but learned that the tiles were painted to reflect how beautifully blue the sky was that day. kThere are 2994 tiles, one for each person who died that day. And each tile is hung sort of off center – not in straight columns – to represent the individuality of each victim. And behind the wall is an office of the NYC Medical Examiner, along with all of the remains of victims who have never been identified from the attacks. They will continue to be tested as DNA testing improves, although our tour guide says some families have asked not to be notified if their loved one’s remains are ever identified. It was pretty emotional just knowing that was there.

I remembered seeing the Survivor Tree when we were there before, and wanted Jeff and the girls to see it, too. Here are a couple of pictures.

Tuesday of last week was Dover Day in NYC. Jeff & I stayed at the condo while Lindee & the girls headed back into the city. They toured the Empire State Building, did some NYC shopping, and ended the night taking in the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It was very late when they got home, but was so much fun hearing all about it. Jeff & I stayed at the condo & slept & ate & watched TV, & never got out of our pajamas until suppertime, when we decided to go driving around & check out a few of the local sights. It was a good day for all of us. I got the pictures of our beautiful girls before they headed out that morning.

The only picture I got of the Statue of Liberty all day, because both my camera and my phone died. It’s taken through the windows of the

I did get this picture of Jeff in front of the Manhattan skyline when we were got to Liberty Island, just before my camera died. It was such a great day.

When we first visited Hershey, Pennsylvania, maybe eight or nine years ago, this is what Clara called it, so of course that’s how we’ve been referring to it ever since :-). We had a wonderful time at the Chocolate Lab, learning all kinds of chocolate trivia and making candy bars. Here are a couple of pictures. Another great day.

As we were heading north on vacation, we stopped when we got into Pennsylvania to spend the night. We were all so tired by then that we just fell into bed & crashed immediately. The kids were so jealous, though, when they came over to our room the next morning and realized Jeff & I had a theme room. And we had not even noticed 🙂

After we left the D-Day Memorial, we stopped at the Natural Bridge, just a little ways down the road, to check it out and do some hiking. Alas, it started raining almost as soon as we got there, but never absolutely poured, so we just kept on walking :-). Lindee was observant enough to see this snake skin while we were on the trail, which was pretty exciting – and creepy.

Yesterday we started our vacation trip, and we have already had such a good day. Our first stop, at the rest area in Lexington, NC, was a suggestion Andrew sent me just before we headed out. The North Carolina Vietnam Memorial is at the particular rest area, & he said it might be a good place for a break on the road. And it really was. It was obviously based on the National Memorial in Washington, DC, but listing all of the men who died from North Carolina. Very moving.

I got Jeff this light set for Christmas this past year. We think it looks perfect hanging on our front porch.

Wednesday Mallory, Mason, & I headed to Hickory – about an hour up the road – to see the Crawdads, their minor league team, in action. Such a fun day. We were excited to see that App State loves Hickory, since that’s where most of the King cousins went to college. Then on the way home we saw the site where they are opening a new App State, Hickory Branch campus. Now it makes perfect sense why App State loves them so much.

Our real draw to watching the Hickory Crawdads play was that Luisangel Acuna, Ronald’s younger brother, plays there. Ronald was on the DL when we were in Atlanta last weekend, so we were so excited to be able to see Luisangel in action. Here he is at the plate.